Adaptation of Quinoa (<i>Chenopodium quinoa</i> Willd.) to Australian Environments

Quinoa is being evaluated in cropping systems in many countries outside of its natural range of South America. Very few attempts have been made by farmers or researchers to grow or evaluate quinoa under Australian environments. Given the growing popularity of quinoa with consumers, new commercial opportunities for farmers and international interest in the crop, it was timely to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of quinoa in Australia. Two advanced selections and nine germplasm lines (six of Chilean and three of Bolivian origin) identified in an earlier project were tested in 23 field trials at 14 locations on mainland Australia. Targets included irrigated sites in tropical, Mediterranean, semi-arid and desert climates, and rain-fed sites of south-western Australia with a Mediterranean climate. The field experiments were either a randomised complete block design (RBCD) or a split plot/factorial design with 2–4 replicates, and a linear mixed model was used to compare the treatment lines. Seed yield of quinoa was highest when grown in winter and spring under rain-fed conditions in Geraldton, in spring and summer under irrigation at Bool Lagoon, and summer, autumn and winter under irrigation at Leeton. The highest seed yield achieved was 3 t/ha for a germplasm line from Chile, while the highest yield for a germplasm line from Bolivia was 2.6 t/ha. Advanced selections from Australia yielded well in comparison at most trial sites. Declining seed yield was associated with mean daily temperatures during seed development increasing above 17 °C, mean daily temperatures during flowering declining below 15 °C, and rainfall during seed development under rain-fed conditions falling below 50 mm. Seed produced at Bool Lagoon was the closest in colour to white quinoa imported from Peru; however, it was more than noticeably different. Seed produced at Geraldton and Leeton was significantly larger than from other field sites; however, none were larger than 2 mm in diameter as found in Royal white quinoa from Bolivia. Superior seed colour and seed size were associated with dry conditions at maturity and cool conditions during seed development, respectively. We conclude that quinoa can become a potential crop option for Australian agriculture by exploiting genetic diversity and supplementing with suitable management practices matched to agro-climatic environments. There are reasonable prospects to raise the seed yield potential in areas in all states, especially in the regions where quinoa grew well in our experiments

Adaptation of Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) to Australian Environments

Quinoa is being evaluated in cropping systems in many countries outside of its natural range of South America. Very few attempts have been made by farmers or researchers to grow or evaluate quinoa under Australian environments. Given the growing popularity of quinoa with consumers, new commercial opportunities for farmers and international interest in the crop, it was timely to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the potential of quinoa in Australia. Two advanced selections and nine germplasm lines (six of Chilean and three of Bolivian origin) identified in an earlier project were tested in 23 field trials at 14 locations on mainland Australia. Targets included irrigated sites in tropical, Mediterranean, semi-arid and desert climates, and rain-fed sites of south-western Australia with a Mediterranean climate. The field experiments were either a randomised complete block design (RBCD) or a split plot/factorial design with 2&ndash;4 replicates, and a linear mixed model was used to compare the treatment lines. Seed yield of quinoa was highest when grown in winter and spring under rain-fed conditions in Geraldton, in spring and summer under irrigation at Bool Lagoon, and summer, autumn and winter under irrigation at Leeton. The highest seed yield achieved was 3 t/ha for a germplasm line from Chile, while the highest yield for a germplasm line from Bolivia was 2.6 t/ha. Advanced selections from Australia yielded well in comparison at most trial sites. Declining seed yield was associated with mean daily temperatures during seed development increasing above 17 &deg;C, mean daily temperatures during flowering declining below 15 &deg;C, and rainfall during seed development under rain-fed conditions falling below 50 mm. Seed produced at Bool Lagoon was the closest in colour to white quinoa imported from Peru; however, it was more than noticeably different. Seed produced at Geraldton and Leeton was significantly larger than from other field sites; however, none were larger than 2 mm in diameter as found in Royal white quinoa from Bolivia. Superior seed colour and seed size were associated with dry conditions at maturity and cool conditions during seed development, respectively. We conclude that quinoa can become a potential crop option for Australian agriculture by exploiting genetic diversity and supplementing with suitable management practices matched to agro-climatic environments. There are reasonable prospects to raise the seed yield potential in areas in all states, especially in the regions where quinoa grew well in our experiments

Anatomie von Kommunikationsrollen. Methoden zur Identifizierung von Akteursrollen in gerichteten Netzwerken.

Die Identifizierung von generalisierbaren Akteursrollen in sozialen Systemen ist seit jeher ein zentrales Anliegen der Sozialwissenschaften. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Identifizierung von Kommunikationsrollen, um die überaus komplexen Prozesse der interpersonalen und massenmedialen Kommunikation systematisch zu beschreiben und zu verstehen. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt auf, welche theoretischen und methodischen Überlegungen bei der Operationalisierung von Akteursrollen in gerichteten Netzwerken zu berücksichtigen sind. Basierend auf einer netzwerkanalytischen Betrachtung werden zum einen Unzulänglichkeiten in bestehenden Operationalisierungen von Kommunikationsrollen aufgezeigt und zum anderen neue Konzepte vorgeschlagen. Die diskutierten Konzepte lassen sich zwei unterschiedlichen Ansätzen zuordnen. Einerseits können Mikrostrukturen wie dyadische und triadische Ego Rollen als Basis für die Operationalisierung verwendet werden und andererseits kann man von der Gesamtstruktur des Netzwerks ausgehen. Für den ersten Fall werden unterschiedliche Aggregationsregeln diskutiert, welche eine Anwendung in komplexeren Netzwerken ermöglichen. Beim zweiten Ansatz, der Berücksichtigung der Gesamtstruktur, werden die Eignung unterschiedlicher Zentralitätsmaße, das Konzept des Blockmodelling und die hierarchische Strukturanalyse besprochen. Zwecks Anschaulichkeit beschränkt sich dieser Beitrag auf Rollen in Kommunikationsnetzwerken. Die vorgestellten Konzepte sind jedoch auch auf andere Netzwerke übertragbar, die aus gerichteten Beziehungen bestehen. ----------------------------------------------------------- The identification of generalizable roles in social systems has been one of the most central issues in social science ever since. Particularly in the field of interpersonal communication, the notion of communication roles has been used to describe and better understand the complex processes in social groups and society. This contribution identifies the theoretical and methodological concepts that have to be considered when roles in directed networks are operationalized. Based on a network analytic approach and critically evaluating the shortcomings of some widely used models, this study aims to propose new concepts for the operationalization of communication roles. These concepts can be divided into two distinctive approaches. One possibility is to use microstructures like dyadic and triadic communication roles as basic units. For this approach, different aggregation rules are discussed which are necessary for their application in more complex networks. The second approach takes the overall structure of a network into ac-count and identifies different roles by applying centrality measures, blockmodelling or hierarchical structure analysis tools. For illustrative reasons, this study limits its focus on the operationalization of communication roles as a prominent object in social science research. The concepts presented, however, are applicable for directed graphs in general